I ALWAYS use the Forgotten Realms wiki, mostly but not completely because I can't find proper wikis for the other two... I absolutely loved Dragonlance and I have yet to explore...was it Greyhawk?
NW is set in FR, in case some people didn't know, so using that wiki gives the most accurate info.
I've always found this question of the immersiveness of first person to be ...
My opinion about immersion is ....
Any game can be immersive. A book can be immersive. Anything which makes you forget about reality, and instead focus on the game/book/etc, is immersive.
The difference between first person and third person immersion is this ....
In third person view, you are immersed into the game. You control an on-screen character in the game.
In first person view, you are immersed into the game and into the character. Why?
because you and your character share the same eyes.
If you wear headphones, then you also share the same ears.
To me, controlling an on-screen character in the game is not the highest level of immersion.
Sharing the same eyes and ears as a character in the game is a higher level of immersion.
First person view is closer to a virtual reality than third person view.
Any game can be immersive. A book can be immersive. Anything which makes you forget about reality, and instead focus on the game/book/etc, is immersive.
...which is why I've always questioned this "immersion" thing, because I've always been aware I'm playing a game, in thirty years of gaming.
(It's such a fantastically overused buzzword these days. On some forums, you'll see "_____ Ruins Mah Immershun!" to criticize literally any game feature that the particular poster doesn't like. There's a HUD displayed on the screen? Ruins immersion! The game has a soundtrack? Ruins immersion (your character isn't walking around with a walkman on, after all!) Heck, I saw someone claim that having a graphics option, buried in a menu, to change the graphical "tone" of Wasteland 2 would ruin his immersion. /facepalm)
I think a videogame will never be the same as playing D&D, I don't know why would anyone think the contrary, Neverwinter is a MMO first with a Forgotten realms Lore (as far as I know) but most of the systems, ways the game work are proper for a MMO.
I would advice to anyone who wants to play the "true D&D experience" to actually play the tabletop game.
exactly.
i'm completely familiar with being a purist when it comes to certain things. being a huge anne rice fan, i was appalled at the hack and slash job warner brothers did to the movie queen of the d*mned. i just didn't get it.
fast forward to today... as a movie unto itself, it's fair. i still think they tried to cram too much lore into a two hour film, but that's what the movie machine does. even in interview with the vampire (of which anne rice penned the screenplay) there were parts left out that i would have thought were important to the building of louis's character... but the movie flows as it does and it works.
as it's been said in different threads of this forum, this is an MMO so the format is definitely not the same as tabletop D&D. tabletop D&D is not class-balanced but in order to port the idea over to an MMO, you have to have class balance. lore has been incorporated from different versions... probably an homage to specific things. and while this might not make sense to some people, it is what it is... and expecting it to be something that it couldn't possibly be in this format doesn't really make any sense.
for me, they'd need to make a six-film high-def graphically-rich journey of the two anne rice books they tried to stuff into one two-hour movie... and while die-hard fans would LOVE this, it probably wouldn't work for the masses.
tabletop D&D is not class-balanced but in order to port the idea over to an MMO, you have to have class balance.
Why?
Rock: Because Paper is always smothering me, I can never win. Paper is over-powered!
Scissors: Rock is crazy - Rock is overpowered, I can never beat Rock.
Paper: What?!? Scissors is way to sharp and overpowered, I can't even get an attack in.
Hey Rock, maybe you should team up with Scissors more?
Hey Scissors, stop chasing Rock - go after Paper.
Hey Paper, run like hell from Scissors and take on Rock.
Why does every class have to be identical with changed labels for powers? Because the PVP'ers will cry if they can't be the equal of every other class with "their" favorite class.
I prefer class individuality over identical with relabeled powers and sparkly animations.
Class "balance" caters to the stupification of tactical thinking.
Rock: Because Paper is always smothering me, I can never win. Paper is over-powered!
Scissors: Rock is crazy - Rock is overpowered, I can never beat Rock.
Paper: What?!? Scissors is way to sharp and overpowered, I can't even get an attack in.
Hey Rock, maybe you should team up with Scissors more?
Hey Scissors, stop chasing Rock - go after Paper.
Hey Paper, run like hell from Scissors and take on Rock.
Why does every class have to be identical with changed labels for powers? Because the PVP'ers will cry if they can't be the equal of every other class with "their" favorite class.
I prefer class individuality over identical with relabeled powers and sparkly animations.
Class "balance" caters to the stupification of tactical thinking.
for the exact same reasons why we can't force world pvp on players or give an ability, even if it was a % chance, to loot other players... it's an MMO designed to cater to different play styles. tabletop d&d is not like that. and for it to port over exactly would be entirely unfair to the casual players versus the hardcore players.
as this game fleshes out more with things like paragon paths and more classes, you might have more of what you want but there will always be a balancing act going on with all classes.
Because no matter how "interesting" and "varied" you make the classes, human nature will kick in. Someone will find out that Class A does 5% more DPS than Classes B & C, and only Class A will be welcome in the parties that can actually complete the end-game content.
(Just like has happened in nearly every MMO I've seen. And just like happens with character builds - "your DPS is terrible, why aren't you using Approved Build A, <party kick>"- and equipment setups, and enchantments, and everything else in MMOs and similar multiplayer games.)
Unless you do utterly unsubtle things like making a fight in each dungeon that can only be completed by a certain class. Or making the dungeons only let you in if you have one of each class. But those brute-force methods are terrible.
Because no matter how "interesting" and "varied" you make the classes, human nature will kick in. Someone will find out that Class A does 5% more DPS than Classes B & C, and only Class A will be welcome in the parties that can actually complete the end-game content.
(Just like has happened in nearly every MMO I've seen. And just like happens with character builds - "your DPS is terrible, why aren't you using Approved Build A, <party kick>"- and equipment setups, and enchantments, and everything else in MMOs and similar multiplayer games.)
Unless you do utterly unsubtle things like making a fight in each dungeon that can only be completed by a certain class. Or making the dungeons only let you in if you have one of each class. But those brute-force methods are terrible.
That's standard of this gaming generation. They don't understand balance that doesn't allow full 1v1. They are completely perplexed by utility abilities, or classes with very different HP/DPS balance. They don't seem to understand that Dungeons and Dragons has multiple duplicates of each role (defender, striker, leader, controller). And even paper and pen DnD has more than it's share of min-maxers. But a lot of the old DnD players aren't susceptible to that kind of thought and choose what they WANT to play, first and foremost.
The simple truth is that the best you can do is disprove their claims on the forums (as happens daily), and ignore them in-game. If we let the very vocal core of power gamers that exist in every game push us out and set the rules for what is 'acceptable', like a group of high-school brats trying to convince everyone around them of their definition of cool, there is no game out there where we will fit in.
Luckily for us, the old pen-and-paper crowd of guys like myself are here, forming guilds and proving that we CAN do any T2 with any class and any paragon capstone, almost as well as the best of the best. Instead of waiting to get picked for the team of know-it-alls, we can all find a better, more enjoyable and often more skilled group of fun players to stick with.
"Every adventurer has two things in common: they don't like dying, and they love getting paid. The rest is just semantics." Brecken, famed mercenary of Baldur's Gate
That's standard of this gaming generation. They don't understand balance that doesn't allow full 1v1. They are completely perplexed by utility abilities, or classes with very different HP/DPS balance. They don't seem to understand that Dungeons and Dragons has multiple duplicates of each role (defender, striker, leader, controller). And even paper and pen DnD has more than it's share of min-maxers. But a lot of the old DnD players aren't susceptible to that kind of thought and choose what they WANT to play, first and foremost.
The simple truth is that the best you can do is disprove their claims on the forums (as happens daily), and ignore them in-game. If we let the very vocal core of power gamers that exist in every game push us out and set the rules for what is 'acceptable', like a group of high-school brats trying to convince everyone around them of their definition of cool, there is no game out there where we will fit in.
Luckily for us, the old pen-and-paper crowd of guys like myself are here, forming guilds and proving that we CAN do any T2 with any class and any paragon capstone, almost as well as the best of the best. Instead of waiting to get picked for the team of know-it-alls, we can all find a better, more enjoyable and often more skilled group of fun players to stick with.
man i couldn't have worded that any better myself. well stated!
My opinion about immersion is ....
Any game can be immersive. A book can be immersive. Anything which makes you forget about reality, and instead focus on the game/book/etc, is immersive.
The difference between first person and third person immersion is this ....
In third person view, you are immersed into the game. You control an on-screen character in the game.
In first person view, you are immersed into the game and into the character. Why?
because you and your character share the same eyes.
If you wear headphones, then you also share the same ears.
To me, controlling an on-screen character in the game is not the highest level of immersion.
Sharing the same eyes and ears as a character in the game is a higher level of immersion.
First person view is closer to a virtual reality than third person view.
That's what I disagree with. Formally, it would seem so, yes, that to be immersed you have to be looking out of your "eyes" to be fully immersed in a character, but in practice, for me at least, it doesn't work that way, because in real life our eyes aren't the only thing we are "looking out of". We also have ears. And our eyes also dart around unconsciously, and we turn our heads and look around all the time, all of which gives one situational awareness - something that can't be duplicated in first person without making you dizzy.
So for me, 3rd person is no less immersive for being "in the character" than 1st person. Often 1st person is less immersive becuase of the lack of situational awareness, which is always subliminally there in real life, but is missing in 1st person view. As I said, the only place where that narrowed vision is immersive, for me, is in the types of situations where your field of focus naturally narrows down to "tunnel vision" anyway - i.e. in extreme fear-based situations such as a dungeon crawl in an unknown dungeon, where in reality you would lose situational awareness anyway, because of the adrenaline, fear and tunnel vision. Then, yes, 1st person perspective has the edge for making me feel "inside" the character.
I've been thinking a lot about why MMORPGs have lost some of the "magic" that made them great.
I've come to the conclusion that it's a function of a relatively young creative industry. What happens is that creative people get promoted to positions of people-management, but they're not necessarily good people managers. The knock-on effect this has is as follows:- projections are inaccurate, things take longer than they should, which means people have to over-budget, which means they need more investment than (with good management) they might otherwise have needed to get an AAA game out on time, which means they need to seek a higher level of investment, which comes with more strings attached, which means they have to then design for a more guaranteed return from a bigger population of players, which means they have to design for the lowest common denominator.
All of which means the order of priorities of the game is on making money first (investors who have put tons of money in have to be paid back), and making something great second, instead of making something great first, and making money second. The result is rushed, unfinished games which appeal to the casual achiever, have a high churn rate, have no community to speak of, and are more or less like Pachinko parlours - cold, insectile places to be.
The sense of hanging out in a virtual world, of being part of a living community, in which one's virtual achievements actually mean something in other players' eyes, and one can be proud of them, is thereby almost lost: virtual achievements have no meaning when they can be bought. Saying "gratz" to someone who levelled is meaningless when levels flow fast. There is no incentive to team up and converse when everything can be easily done solo, and automated dungeon finders can form a group without anyone having to talk to anyone else. And yes, 1v1 balance becomes the main focus, and the idea of working together to overcome something becomes a mere mechanism to gate shinies that no longer mean anything anyway.
Just replayed Neverwinternights 2 while ago, and I am astonished that Forgotten Realms agreed to this new arcade style hack and slash format.
Being an original D&D player from the late 70's, (yes I'm 45 with a never ending fascination with fantasy roleplaying), I am taken back that this, and the trailers for the new, Neverwinter are being marketed as "a true D&D experience". Come on guys, even after Skyrim (?), who's storyline and world will never be as rich, diverse and encompassing as AD&D's. But, (barring their character management system), they produced an experience closer to the spirit of role playing than anyone else.
Why in the world would "ya'll" take a big leap backward with this "kids" friendly game?
Sorry again guys, but my heart is crushed!
Same, its generic mainstream rubbish. All diversity lost, the D&D feel is not there. Only hope is for a new video game, most like you are simply waiting for the next fundamentally D&D based game.
That's what I disagree with. Formally, it would seem so, yes, that to be immersed you have to be looking out of your "eyes" to be fully immersed in a character, but in practice, for me at least, it doesn't work that way, because in real life our eyes aren't the only thing we are "looking out of". We also have ears. And our eyes also dart around unconsciously, and we turn our heads and look around all the time, all of which gives one situational awareness - something that can't be duplicated in first person without making you dizzy.
So for me, 3rd person is no less immersive for being "in the character" than 1st person. Often 1st person is less immersive becuase of the lack of situational awareness, which is always subliminally there in real life, but is missing in 1st person view. As I said, the only place where that narrowed vision is immersive, for me, is in the types of situations where your field of focus naturally narrows down to "tunnel vision" anyway - i.e. in extreme fear-based situations such as a dungeon crawl in an unknown dungeon, where in reality you would lose situational awareness anyway, because of the adrenaline, fear and tunnel vision. Then, yes, 1st person perspective has the edge for making me feel "inside" the character.
I've been thinking a lot about why MMORPGs have lost some of the "magic" that made them great.
I've come to the conclusion that it's a function of a relatively young creative industry. What happens is that creative people get promoted to positions of people-management, but they're not necessarily good people managers. The knock-on effect this has is as follows:- projections are inaccurate, things take longer than they should, which means people have to over-budget, which means they need more investment than (with good management) they might otherwise have needed to get an AAA game out on time, which means they need to seek a higher level of investment, which comes with more strings attached, which means they have to then design for a more guaranteed return from a bigger population of players, which means they have to design for the lowest common denominator.
All of which means the order of priorities of the game is on making money first (investors who have put tons of money in have to be paid back), and making something great second, instead of making something great first, and making money second. The result is rushed, unfinished games which appeal to the casual achiever, have a high churn rate, have no community to speak of, and are more or less like Pachinko parlours - cold, insectile places to be.
The sense of hanging out in a virtual world, of being part of a living community, in which one's virtual achievements actually mean something in other players' eyes, and one can be proud of them, is thereby almost lost: virtual achievements have no meaning when they can be bought. Saying "gratz" to someone who levelled is meaningless when levels flow fast. There is no incentive to team up and converse when everything can be easily done solo, and automated dungeon finders can form a group without anyone having to talk to anyone else. And yes, 1v1 balance becomes the main focus, and the idea of working together to overcome something becomes a mere mechanism to gate shinies that no longer mean anything anyway.
so what you're saying is that in every MMO scenario, unqualified creative artists are promoted into management and they basically ruin the creative process? what factual information do you have to back this up? and no slippery slope argument comebacks... you're the one making this claim.
any like-minded individuals that come together to create a game all may have a passion for gaming, but the reality of the development of said game is it requires a lot of time and effort that likely would require a full-time commitment. to assume that any game in development does not have finances in mind to, at a minimum, allow the developers to work full time on the game project is ridiculous. game development requires a business mentality. to make the statement that the whole focus IS to make money... well... who doesn't want to make a living doing something they enjoy? but you can't just throw something together to make this work. there are probably thousands of failed game projects in existence started by like-minded individuals. maybe the time commitment can't be met or the dedication is overshadowed by regular full-time jobs and the need to support their families first... or, as you put it, poor management.
while your post is eloquently written, it is pure conjecture based on your opinions. the fact is that neverwinter is a successful project that has gone through closed beta, open beta, a live roll out and a module update with more to come. that's not to say that it isn't without some issues but all MMOs have them. people complain about things not getting fixed in a timely manner or the lack of communication from the devs... they complain about what they see as more dedication to the zen store than anything else... but all of this is opinion completely jaded by impatience or bad personal experiences.
it's one thing to care about this game and wanting it to be better by offering suggestions and your opinions in a constructive way... but to come here with negative attitudes and doom/gloom posts, conjecture and false statements is ridiculous. it offers nothing of value. your priorities are not the same as the company's priorities. while you may never accept that or understand it fully, it will never change. and if your deduction of that point is that the company is nothing but a money-maker and they don't care about anything else... that would still be based on assumptions.
so what you're saying is that in every MMO scenario, unqualified creative artists are promoted into management and they basically ruin the creative process? what factual information do you have to back this up? and no slippery slope argument comebacks... you're the one making this claim.
any like-minded individuals that come together to create a game all may have a passion for gaming, but the reality of the development of said game is it requires a lot of time and effort that likely would require a full-time commitment. to assume that any game in development does not have finances in mind to, at a minimum, allow the developers to work full time on the game project is ridiculous. game development requires a business mentality. to make the statement that the whole focus IS to make money... well... who doesn't want to make a living doing something they enjoy? but you can't just throw something together to make this work. there are probably thousands of failed game projects in existence started by like-minded individuals. maybe the time commitment can't be met or the dedication is overshadowed by regular full-time jobs and the need to support their families first... or, as you put it, poor management.
There was a point in time when a group of code monkeys got together to build an MMO, and they made something they thought was fantastic and exceptional, and had to realize that the profit on it was very limited. An MMO having 10,000 players was big business. 40,000 was exceptional. 100,000 was top of the line. At $20 a month, plus dial-up internet, plus rather steep learning curves due to the creative uniqueness of each groups approach ... it was a niche market.
Then EverQuest hit. And did remarkably well. And then there was a few Asian market games that were sending back unbelievable numbers to the states, showing that MMO's could be as main stream as CounterStrike or Age of Empires.
The end of this 'Golden Era' of the MMORPG was World of Warcraft. It didn't push any graphical boundaries. It didn't bring any new mechanics. It actually went in reverse, limiting character design options, lowering actual world immersion and interaction, and requiring less group content. But what it did do, is take the easiest and most interactive creative ideas from each of these prior MMO's, and combine it into a content-rich, easily digested and easily disseminated game.
The legacy of World of Warcraft was actually it's success. Because it was very successful at pulling MMO's from that 'niche' market into mainstream. It advertised on TV. It advertised in magazines. Famous people played. EVERYONE played. It touted how many customers it had like a McDonalds sign. It set a new bar.
In my eyes, ever since this era, we've dealt with individuals who not only want to make money, but EXPECT to make money. Lots of it. Easily. I have no doubt that the weekly meetings in the management section of each of these game companies is focused on how to make another dime, not a better product for the gamer.
This doesn't mean the 'Golden Era' programmers weren't greedy, but they knew that their profit margin wasn't that great. These later generations of games (of which we've already evolved past the Mainstream era into the MicroTransaction decade) draw more individuals wanting to make money then the early era of MMO's. That era, where the profit margin was lower and there was no promise to wealth (more than one company folded because of the cost of producing and managing an MMO, which is why SOE bought so many out), brought more individuals dedicated to the game.
"Every adventurer has two things in common: they don't like dying, and they love getting paid. The rest is just semantics." Brecken, famed mercenary of Baldur's Gate
so... you're saying that the only era where individuals were more dedicated to the actual product over profit was when it wasn't profitable? which would then mean that NOW no one is dedicated because there is just too much profit to be made in MMOs.
nice history lesson here, but i don't agree with that line of thinking at all.
so what you're saying is that in every MMO scenario, unqualified creative artists are promoted into management and they basically ruin the creative process? what factual information do you have to back this up? and no slippery slope argument comebacks... you're the one making this claim.
The most notorious example is Vanguard (Brad McQuaid, one of the geniuses behind Everquest, set up own company and set out to design the mother of all MMOs, mismanaged it horribly, what came out was a travesty all the more bitter because it obviously had so much potential). The next most notorious is Tabula Rasa (almost the same story, as Vanguard, but complicated by factors involving the first attempt at a co-production by an Asian company and an American company). The next most notorious is Age of Conan (brilliant creative guy in charge of project, complete mess at launch, not living up to expectations at all). These are well known in the industry, there are plenty articles about all three if you're interested.
any like-minded individuals that come together to create a game all may have a passion for gaming, but the reality of the development of said game is it requires a lot of time and effort that likely would require a full-time commitment. to assume that any game in development does not have finances in mind to, at a minimum, allow the developers to work full time on the game project is ridiculous. game development requires a business mentality. to make the statement that the whole focus IS to make money... well... who doesn't want to make a living doing something they enjoy? but you can't just throw something together to make this work. there are probably thousands of failed game projects in existence started by like-minded individuals. maybe the time commitment can't be met or the dedication is overshadowed by regular full-time jobs and the need to support their families first... or, as you put it, poor management.
As I said, I have no problem with making money, nobody with a head on their shoulders does, surely. But in all artistic, creative endeavours it has to be the second priority not the first. Build it and they will come. Money is the reward for getting it "in the pocket" artistically.
This point about bad people-management in the industry isn't just my opinion, it's a live thought amongst many developers (I hang out on a forum that has lots of them, and this subject has often been discussed).
Of course it's changing as the industry matures, but in a sense the damage has been done: we've got all these by-numbers MMOs that were pushed out to cash in, not out of greed, but out of necessity (because that's the only way they could have been made at all in the context of the time since WoW). The bad thing is that that type of design is now what people expect, and it will take another mold-breaking success to turn the ship round in a better direction.
so... you're saying that the only era where individuals were more dedicated to the actual product over profit was when it wasn't profitable? which would then mean that NOW no one is dedicated because there is just too much profit to be made in MMOs.
nice history lesson here, but i don't agree with that line of thinking at all.
But that's pretty much what I'm saying. There are just as many people getting into the industry for money as there are people joining the industry because they love games. In fact, I'd argue more.
Game development companies are starting from the top on on many occasions. Fewer coders, more managers. Corporate structure, PR teams, legal departments, even internal auditors. People who never actually touch the game itself in any way.
It's like the US medical system. The vast majority of people don't become doctors or pharmacists because they want to help people. They jump into the career because everyone knows it's one of the quickest ways to earn over 100k a year.
So many more of the people who I see going to 'game design' at the two local colleges have no interest at all in games themselves. They are going because it makes money. And there is a chance to make LOTS of money, or so they are lead to believe.
"Every adventurer has two things in common: they don't like dying, and they love getting paid. The rest is just semantics." Brecken, famed mercenary of Baldur's Gate
Comments
I ALWAYS use the Forgotten Realms wiki, mostly but not completely because I can't find proper wikis for the other two... I absolutely loved Dragonlance and I have yet to explore...was it Greyhawk?
NW is set in FR, in case some people didn't know, so using that wiki gives the most accurate info.
My opinion about immersion is ....
Any game can be immersive. A book can be immersive. Anything which makes you forget about reality, and instead focus on the game/book/etc, is immersive.
The difference between first person and third person immersion is this ....
In third person view, you are immersed into the game. You control an on-screen character in the game.
In first person view, you are immersed into the game and into the character. Why?
because you and your character share the same eyes.
If you wear headphones, then you also share the same ears.
To me, controlling an on-screen character in the game is not the highest level of immersion.
Sharing the same eyes and ears as a character in the game is a higher level of immersion.
First person view is closer to a virtual reality than third person view.
...which is why I've always questioned this "immersion" thing, because I've always been aware I'm playing a game, in thirty years of gaming.
(It's such a fantastically overused buzzword these days. On some forums, you'll see "_____ Ruins Mah Immershun!" to criticize literally any game feature that the particular poster doesn't like. There's a HUD displayed on the screen? Ruins immersion! The game has a soundtrack? Ruins immersion (your character isn't walking around with a walkman on, after all!) Heck, I saw someone claim that having a graphics option, buried in a menu, to change the graphical "tone" of Wasteland 2 would ruin his immersion. /facepalm)
exactly.
i'm completely familiar with being a purist when it comes to certain things. being a huge anne rice fan, i was appalled at the hack and slash job warner brothers did to the movie queen of the d*mned. i just didn't get it.
fast forward to today... as a movie unto itself, it's fair. i still think they tried to cram too much lore into a two hour film, but that's what the movie machine does. even in interview with the vampire (of which anne rice penned the screenplay) there were parts left out that i would have thought were important to the building of louis's character... but the movie flows as it does and it works.
as it's been said in different threads of this forum, this is an MMO so the format is definitely not the same as tabletop D&D. tabletop D&D is not class-balanced but in order to port the idea over to an MMO, you have to have class balance. lore has been incorporated from different versions... probably an homage to specific things. and while this might not make sense to some people, it is what it is... and expecting it to be something that it couldn't possibly be in this format doesn't really make any sense.
for me, they'd need to make a six-film high-def graphically-rich journey of the two anne rice books they tried to stuff into one two-hour movie... and while die-hard fans would LOVE this, it probably wouldn't work for the masses.
Why?
Rock: Because Paper is always smothering me, I can never win. Paper is over-powered!
Scissors: Rock is crazy - Rock is overpowered, I can never beat Rock.
Paper: What?!? Scissors is way to sharp and overpowered, I can't even get an attack in.
Hey Rock, maybe you should team up with Scissors more?
Hey Scissors, stop chasing Rock - go after Paper.
Hey Paper, run like hell from Scissors and take on Rock.
Why does every class have to be identical with changed labels for powers? Because the PVP'ers will cry if they can't be the equal of every other class with "their" favorite class.
I prefer class individuality over identical with relabeled powers and sparkly animations.
Class "balance" caters to the stupification of tactical thinking.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
for the exact same reasons why we can't force world pvp on players or give an ability, even if it was a % chance, to loot other players... it's an MMO designed to cater to different play styles. tabletop d&d is not like that. and for it to port over exactly would be entirely unfair to the casual players versus the hardcore players.
as this game fleshes out more with things like paragon paths and more classes, you might have more of what you want but there will always be a balancing act going on with all classes.
Because no matter how "interesting" and "varied" you make the classes, human nature will kick in. Someone will find out that Class A does 5% more DPS than Classes B & C, and only Class A will be welcome in the parties that can actually complete the end-game content.
(Just like has happened in nearly every MMO I've seen. And just like happens with character builds - "your DPS is terrible, why aren't you using Approved Build A, <party kick>"- and equipment setups, and enchantments, and everything else in MMOs and similar multiplayer games.)
Unless you do utterly unsubtle things like making a fight in each dungeon that can only be completed by a certain class. Or making the dungeons only let you in if you have one of each class. But those brute-force methods are terrible.
That's standard of this gaming generation. They don't understand balance that doesn't allow full 1v1. They are completely perplexed by utility abilities, or classes with very different HP/DPS balance. They don't seem to understand that Dungeons and Dragons has multiple duplicates of each role (defender, striker, leader, controller). And even paper and pen DnD has more than it's share of min-maxers. But a lot of the old DnD players aren't susceptible to that kind of thought and choose what they WANT to play, first and foremost.
The simple truth is that the best you can do is disprove their claims on the forums (as happens daily), and ignore them in-game. If we let the very vocal core of power gamers that exist in every game push us out and set the rules for what is 'acceptable', like a group of high-school brats trying to convince everyone around them of their definition of cool, there is no game out there where we will fit in.
Luckily for us, the old pen-and-paper crowd of guys like myself are here, forming guilds and proving that we CAN do any T2 with any class and any paragon capstone, almost as well as the best of the best. Instead of waiting to get picked for the team of know-it-alls, we can all find a better, more enjoyable and often more skilled group of fun players to stick with.
"D*mn wizards," said Morik the Rogue.
Learn what a GWF and GF really are: The History of Fighters
man i couldn't have worded that any better myself. well stated!
That's what I disagree with. Formally, it would seem so, yes, that to be immersed you have to be looking out of your "eyes" to be fully immersed in a character, but in practice, for me at least, it doesn't work that way, because in real life our eyes aren't the only thing we are "looking out of". We also have ears. And our eyes also dart around unconsciously, and we turn our heads and look around all the time, all of which gives one situational awareness - something that can't be duplicated in first person without making you dizzy.
So for me, 3rd person is no less immersive for being "in the character" than 1st person. Often 1st person is less immersive becuase of the lack of situational awareness, which is always subliminally there in real life, but is missing in 1st person view. As I said, the only place where that narrowed vision is immersive, for me, is in the types of situations where your field of focus naturally narrows down to "tunnel vision" anyway - i.e. in extreme fear-based situations such as a dungeon crawl in an unknown dungeon, where in reality you would lose situational awareness anyway, because of the adrenaline, fear and tunnel vision. Then, yes, 1st person perspective has the edge for making me feel "inside" the character.
I've been thinking a lot about why MMORPGs have lost some of the "magic" that made them great.
I've come to the conclusion that it's a function of a relatively young creative industry. What happens is that creative people get promoted to positions of people-management, but they're not necessarily good people managers. The knock-on effect this has is as follows:- projections are inaccurate, things take longer than they should, which means people have to over-budget, which means they need more investment than (with good management) they might otherwise have needed to get an AAA game out on time, which means they need to seek a higher level of investment, which comes with more strings attached, which means they have to then design for a more guaranteed return from a bigger population of players, which means they have to design for the lowest common denominator.
All of which means the order of priorities of the game is on making money first (investors who have put tons of money in have to be paid back), and making something great second, instead of making something great first, and making money second. The result is rushed, unfinished games which appeal to the casual achiever, have a high churn rate, have no community to speak of, and are more or less like Pachinko parlours - cold, insectile places to be.
The sense of hanging out in a virtual world, of being part of a living community, in which one's virtual achievements actually mean something in other players' eyes, and one can be proud of them, is thereby almost lost: virtual achievements have no meaning when they can be bought. Saying "gratz" to someone who levelled is meaningless when levels flow fast. There is no incentive to team up and converse when everything can be easily done solo, and automated dungeon finders can form a group without anyone having to talk to anyone else. And yes, 1v1 balance becomes the main focus, and the idea of working together to overcome something becomes a mere mechanism to gate shinies that no longer mean anything anyway.
Same, its generic mainstream rubbish. All diversity lost, the D&D feel is not there. Only hope is for a new video game, most like you are simply waiting for the next fundamentally D&D based game.
Agreed, thats very well explained.
so what you're saying is that in every MMO scenario, unqualified creative artists are promoted into management and they basically ruin the creative process? what factual information do you have to back this up? and no slippery slope argument comebacks... you're the one making this claim.
any like-minded individuals that come together to create a game all may have a passion for gaming, but the reality of the development of said game is it requires a lot of time and effort that likely would require a full-time commitment. to assume that any game in development does not have finances in mind to, at a minimum, allow the developers to work full time on the game project is ridiculous. game development requires a business mentality. to make the statement that the whole focus IS to make money... well... who doesn't want to make a living doing something they enjoy? but you can't just throw something together to make this work. there are probably thousands of failed game projects in existence started by like-minded individuals. maybe the time commitment can't be met or the dedication is overshadowed by regular full-time jobs and the need to support their families first... or, as you put it, poor management.
while your post is eloquently written, it is pure conjecture based on your opinions. the fact is that neverwinter is a successful project that has gone through closed beta, open beta, a live roll out and a module update with more to come. that's not to say that it isn't without some issues but all MMOs have them. people complain about things not getting fixed in a timely manner or the lack of communication from the devs... they complain about what they see as more dedication to the zen store than anything else... but all of this is opinion completely jaded by impatience or bad personal experiences.
it's one thing to care about this game and wanting it to be better by offering suggestions and your opinions in a constructive way... but to come here with negative attitudes and doom/gloom posts, conjecture and false statements is ridiculous. it offers nothing of value. your priorities are not the same as the company's priorities. while you may never accept that or understand it fully, it will never change. and if your deduction of that point is that the company is nothing but a money-maker and they don't care about anything else... that would still be based on assumptions.
There was a point in time when a group of code monkeys got together to build an MMO, and they made something they thought was fantastic and exceptional, and had to realize that the profit on it was very limited. An MMO having 10,000 players was big business. 40,000 was exceptional. 100,000 was top of the line. At $20 a month, plus dial-up internet, plus rather steep learning curves due to the creative uniqueness of each groups approach ... it was a niche market.
Then EverQuest hit. And did remarkably well. And then there was a few Asian market games that were sending back unbelievable numbers to the states, showing that MMO's could be as main stream as CounterStrike or Age of Empires.
The end of this 'Golden Era' of the MMORPG was World of Warcraft. It didn't push any graphical boundaries. It didn't bring any new mechanics. It actually went in reverse, limiting character design options, lowering actual world immersion and interaction, and requiring less group content. But what it did do, is take the easiest and most interactive creative ideas from each of these prior MMO's, and combine it into a content-rich, easily digested and easily disseminated game.
The legacy of World of Warcraft was actually it's success. Because it was very successful at pulling MMO's from that 'niche' market into mainstream. It advertised on TV. It advertised in magazines. Famous people played. EVERYONE played. It touted how many customers it had like a McDonalds sign. It set a new bar.
In my eyes, ever since this era, we've dealt with individuals who not only want to make money, but EXPECT to make money. Lots of it. Easily. I have no doubt that the weekly meetings in the management section of each of these game companies is focused on how to make another dime, not a better product for the gamer.
This doesn't mean the 'Golden Era' programmers weren't greedy, but they knew that their profit margin wasn't that great. These later generations of games (of which we've already evolved past the Mainstream era into the MicroTransaction decade) draw more individuals wanting to make money then the early era of MMO's. That era, where the profit margin was lower and there was no promise to wealth (more than one company folded because of the cost of producing and managing an MMO, which is why SOE bought so many out), brought more individuals dedicated to the game.
"D*mn wizards," said Morik the Rogue.
Learn what a GWF and GF really are: The History of Fighters
nice history lesson here, but i don't agree with that line of thinking at all.
The most notorious example is Vanguard (Brad McQuaid, one of the geniuses behind Everquest, set up own company and set out to design the mother of all MMOs, mismanaged it horribly, what came out was a travesty all the more bitter because it obviously had so much potential). The next most notorious is Tabula Rasa (almost the same story, as Vanguard, but complicated by factors involving the first attempt at a co-production by an Asian company and an American company). The next most notorious is Age of Conan (brilliant creative guy in charge of project, complete mess at launch, not living up to expectations at all). These are well known in the industry, there are plenty articles about all three if you're interested.
As I said, I have no problem with making money, nobody with a head on their shoulders does, surely. But in all artistic, creative endeavours it has to be the second priority not the first. Build it and they will come. Money is the reward for getting it "in the pocket" artistically.
This point about bad people-management in the industry isn't just my opinion, it's a live thought amongst many developers (I hang out on a forum that has lots of them, and this subject has often been discussed).
Of course it's changing as the industry matures, but in a sense the damage has been done: we've got all these by-numbers MMOs that were pushed out to cash in, not out of greed, but out of necessity (because that's the only way they could have been made at all in the context of the time since WoW). The bad thing is that that type of design is now what people expect, and it will take another mold-breaking success to turn the ship round in a better direction.
But that's pretty much what I'm saying. There are just as many people getting into the industry for money as there are people joining the industry because they love games. In fact, I'd argue more.
Game development companies are starting from the top on on many occasions. Fewer coders, more managers. Corporate structure, PR teams, legal departments, even internal auditors. People who never actually touch the game itself in any way.
It's like the US medical system. The vast majority of people don't become doctors or pharmacists because they want to help people. They jump into the career because everyone knows it's one of the quickest ways to earn over 100k a year.
So many more of the people who I see going to 'game design' at the two local colleges have no interest at all in games themselves. They are going because it makes money. And there is a chance to make LOTS of money, or so they are lead to believe.
"D*mn wizards," said Morik the Rogue.
Learn what a GWF and GF really are: The History of Fighters